[OS X TeX] PPC to Intel

[Bob Kerstetter]

On Jun 8, 2005, at 4:57 PM, mark oilcan wrote:

>
>
> --- Maarten Sneep <maarten.sneep at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>
>> On 8 Jun 2005, at 12:25, Gerben Wierda wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> ...and so the question, for those who know best, will the
>>>>
>> transition
>>
>>>> from PowerPC to Intel be painless, as far as TeX (and all the
>>>>
>> related
>>
>>>> apps that we so cherish) is concerned?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Regarding the backend most people use on Mac OS X: I have already a
>>>
>>
>>
>>> report
>>> that TeX Live compiles fine on an Intellimac.
>>>
>>
>> I would expect the 'Intellimac' (first time I hear this name) to be
>>
>
> Personally, I would prefer Macintel as I don't particularly see any
> reason to associate the word "intelligent" with a Mac using an Intel
> cpu. Not that it's a big deal or anything....


I was pretty impressed with the "little boy-ish" attitude of the  
Intel CEO during the WWDC keynote.  He seemed genuinely excited about  
this. Intel is possibly looking forward to working with a fun  
company. MS and Dell are okay, but they are also business-grey- 
boring. Apple is business-color-cool.

I don't know, but maybe Intel is pushing the envelope and maybe IBM  
has lost its edge. I used to work for IBM. At the time (1980-89) a  
lot of the staff were star trek-ish futuristic smart---I mean one of  
my colleagues programmed the fuel flow simulator for the Saturn V in  
assembly language and fortran---and it was not unusual to work with  
this caliber of people in both hardware and software. I get the  
impression that is not the case any longer. They appear to be  
becoming sort of a software service company. I really don't know what  
happens at IBM these days when it comes to hardware development, but  
Apple is obviously not impressed.

Bob Kerstetter
http://homepage.mac.com/bkerstetter/

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